1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automotive interior component incorporating an airbag.
2. Description of the Related Art
An automotive airbag is intended to inflate and expand between a vehicle occupant and a structural body of a vehicle to protect the vehicle occupant from a direct collision with the structural body of the vehicle due to an inertial force at the time of a collision of the vehicle against an obstacle or another vehicle, etc., to thereby ensure safety of the vehicle occupant. Therefore, an airbag device needs to have a function of sensing a collision and reliably completing expansion and inflation of the airbag within a short period of time until the vehicle occupant collides against the vehicle structural body.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2006-88731 discloses art directed to an airbag device installed in a side door of the vehicle, in which an airbag can reliably inflate from an upper portion of a door trim on the side door to the interior of the vehicle upon a side collision of the vehicle.
In the foregoing conventional art, an expanding portion, defined by a groove formed of a thinly-processed core member of the door trim, is structured to turn upward and to be push-opened when the airbag expands and inflates. At this time, a part of the thinly-processed groove breaks whereas the other connected part functions as a hinged portion, thereby achieving an effect that expansion and inflation of the airbag is reliably performed.
In order for the airbag accommodated inside the automotive interior component to smoothly expand and inflate in order to ensure safety of the vehicle occupant, the expanding portion provided in the interior component needs to be instantaneously cleaved to form an opening. For this purpose, as disclosed in the conventional art, a weak portion of low rigidity is provided so as to easily cleave the periphery of the expanding portion to form the opening.
However, the conventional art has entailed a problem that provision of the weak portion in the periphery of the expanding portion as part of the interior component causes the interior component to be misaligned or degraded in appearance due to an occurrence of undulation when it is attached to a vehicle body panel.
In view of the foregoing, an object of the present invention is to provide an automotive interior component, in which an expanding portion can be stably opened at the time of expansion and inflation of the airbag while the appearance and alignment quality of the automotive interior component is assured.